Misbah-Abd
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A bit dramatic don't you think?
Oh Syria the victory is coming
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A bit dramatic don't you think?
OnlyMuslim
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I think he's got a point. You have to remember that some Muslims such as myself live in the West so there would be no escaping it. Also, if countries use nuclear weapons, it can be damaging to everyone.
JustTime
كـٌنٍ مـَع الـلُّـہ
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It doesn't matter it is inevitable the Prophet promised us such a fate in the end times in the era of Malahim all this would mean is either we are in the era or close to it, and for us believers it means we are closer to the hour and closer to Jannah insha'Allah and Jannah is better than this Dunya, don't be clingy.
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He likes exaggerating
Misbah-Abd
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The only good rulers are those that rule by the Law of Allah. All others are Taghuut rulers. Whether Arab or otherwise. Saddaam doesn't get a pass because he was an Arab.
Because Putin is now really scared of a massive NATO attack towards directly Russia. The global balance has already broken. Illuminati wants a third world war. And he knows that.
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We Muslims dont want any one be killed unjustly. A major world war with those scary amount of nuclear guns in hands of each side brings only destruction to mankind. But everything is under Allah’s control. If it happens we must stay neutral.
Actually, bro just time mentioned him in his post from positive aspect
Misbah-Abd
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNulkbvqZiA
[TABLE="class: grid, width: 100%, align: center"]
[TR][TD]Feasting Upon Syria, Iraq, & Muslim Countries┇Shaykh Raslan - YouTube
Please Donate to Afrin & Other Syrian Regions https://www.gofundme.com/heal-afrin-save-the-helpless References: https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/weste......[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]
[TABLE="class: grid, width: 100%, align: center"]
[TR][TD]Feasting Upon Syria, Iraq, & Muslim Countries┇Shaykh Raslan - YouTube
Please Donate to Afrin & Other Syrian Regions https://www.gofundme.com/heal-afrin-save-the-helpless References: https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/weste......[/TD][/TR][/TABLE]
Salaam
Not really brother.
Chomsky: Like Obama, Trump Is Radically Increasing the Danger of Nuclear War
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist 70 Years Speaking Knowledge to Power
2018
IT IS 2 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
The failure of world leaders to address the largest threats to humanity’s future is lamentable—but that failure can be reversed. It is two minutes to midnight, but the Doomsday Clock has ticked away from midnight in the past, and during the next year, the world can again move it further from apocalypse. The warning the Science and Security Board now sends is clear, the danger obvious and imminent. The opportunity to reduce the danger is equally clear. The world has seen the threat posed by the misuse of information technology and witnessed the vulnerability of democracies to disinformation. But there is a flip side to the abuse of social media. Leaders react when citizens insist they do so, and citizens around the world can use the power of the internet to improve the long-term prospects of their children and grandchildren. They can insist on facts, and discount nonsense. They can demand action to reduce the existential threat of nuclear war and unchecked climate change. They can seize the opportunity to make a safer and saner world. See the full statement from the Science and Security Board on the 2018 time of the Doomsday Clock.
https://thebulletin.org/clock/2018
Not really brother.
Chomsky: Like Obama, Trump Is Radically Increasing the Danger of Nuclear War
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist 70 Years Speaking Knowledge to Power
2018
IT IS 2 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT
The failure of world leaders to address the largest threats to humanity’s future is lamentable—but that failure can be reversed. It is two minutes to midnight, but the Doomsday Clock has ticked away from midnight in the past, and during the next year, the world can again move it further from apocalypse. The warning the Science and Security Board now sends is clear, the danger obvious and imminent. The opportunity to reduce the danger is equally clear. The world has seen the threat posed by the misuse of information technology and witnessed the vulnerability of democracies to disinformation. But there is a flip side to the abuse of social media. Leaders react when citizens insist they do so, and citizens around the world can use the power of the internet to improve the long-term prospects of their children and grandchildren. They can insist on facts, and discount nonsense. They can demand action to reduce the existential threat of nuclear war and unchecked climate change. They can seize the opportunity to make a safer and saner world. See the full statement from the Science and Security Board on the 2018 time of the Doomsday Clock.
https://thebulletin.org/clock/2018
Salaam
Just to follow up I know its the Daily Mail but its believable.
Royal Navy's $1.3bn submarine was locked in a deadly game of 'hide and seek' with Russian hunter-killer ships for DAYS before air strikes on Syria
A Royal Navy submarine was hunted by Russian warships in a 'cat and mouse' pursuit under the eastern Mediterranean shortly before the UK took part in airstrikes against the Assad regime in Syria, it has emerged.
Russian hunter-killer submarines, nicknamed 'Black Hole' because of their stealth, chased the British Astute-class submarines over several days, supported by two frigates and an anti-submarine aircraft, according to a military source.
UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said today that the UK would have to take 'precautions' against Russian cyber-attacks, after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of 'consequences' following the airstrikes by the UK, US and France in which suspected chemical weapons sites in Syria were reduced to rubble.
The Russian Kilo-class submarines tracked the British crew as the UK vessel, carrying Tomahawk missiles with a range of up to 1,000 miles, moved within firing distance of Syria, The Sunday Times reports.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5617799/Royal-Navy-submarine-hunted-Russia-cat-mouse-pursuit.html
Just to follow up I know its the Daily Mail but its believable.
Royal Navy's $1.3bn submarine was locked in a deadly game of 'hide and seek' with Russian hunter-killer ships for DAYS before air strikes on Syria
A Royal Navy submarine was hunted by Russian warships in a 'cat and mouse' pursuit under the eastern Mediterranean shortly before the UK took part in airstrikes against the Assad regime in Syria, it has emerged.
Russian hunter-killer submarines, nicknamed 'Black Hole' because of their stealth, chased the British Astute-class submarines over several days, supported by two frigates and an anti-submarine aircraft, according to a military source.
UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said today that the UK would have to take 'precautions' against Russian cyber-attacks, after Russian President Vladimir Putin warned of 'consequences' following the airstrikes by the UK, US and France in which suspected chemical weapons sites in Syria were reduced to rubble.
The Russian Kilo-class submarines tracked the British crew as the UK vessel, carrying Tomahawk missiles with a range of up to 1,000 miles, moved within firing distance of Syria, The Sunday Times reports.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5617799/Royal-Navy-submarine-hunted-Russia-cat-mouse-pursuit.html
Salaam
More comment.
The ‘anti-imperialism’ of idiots
Once more the western ‘anti-war’ movement has awoken to mobilise around Syria. This is the third time since 2011. The first was when Obama contemplated striking the Syrian regime’s military capability (but didn’t) following chemical attacks on the Ghouta in 2013, considered a ‘red line’. The second time was when Donald Trump ordered a strike which hit an empty regime military base in response to chemical attacks on Khan Sheikhoun in 2017. And today, as the US, UK and France take limited military action (targeted strikes on regime military assets and chemical weapons facilities) following a chemical weapons attack in Douma which killed at least 34 people, including many children who were sheltering in basements from bombing.
The first thing to note from the three major mobilisations of the western ‘anti-war’ left is that they have little to do with ending the war. More than half a million Syrians have been killed since 2011. The vast majority of civilian deaths have been through the use of conventional weapons and 94 per cent of these victims were killed by the Syrian-Russian-Iranian alliance. There is no outrage or concern feigned for this war, which followed the regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceful, pro-democracy demonstrators. There’s no outrage when barrel bombs, chemical weapons and napalm are dropped on democratically self-organized communities or target hospitals and rescue workers. Civilians are expendable; the military capabilities of a genocidal, fascist regime are not. In fact the slogan ‘Hands off Syria’ really means ‘Hands off Assad’ and support is often given for Russia’s military intervention. This was evident yesterday at a demonstration organized by Stop the War UK where a number of regime and Russian flags were shamefully on display.
This left exhibits deeply authoritarian tendencies, one that places states themselves at the centre of political analysis. Solidarity is therefore extended to states (seen as the main actor in a struggle for liberation) rather than oppressed or underprivileged groups in any given society, no matter that state’s tyranny. Blind to the social war occurring within Syria itself, the Syrian people (where they exist) are viewed as mere pawns in a geo-political chess game. They repeat the mantra ‘Assad is the legitimate ruler of a sovereign country’. Assad – who inherited a dictatorship from his father and has never held, let alone won, a free and fair election. Assad – whose ‘Syrian Arab Army’ can only regain the territory it lost with the backing of a hotchpotch of foreign mercenaries and supported by foreign bombs, and who are fighting, by and large, Syrian-born rebels and civilians. How many would consider their own elected government legitimate if it began carrying out mass rape campaigns against dissidents? It’s only the complete dehumanization of Syrians that makes such a position even possible. It’s a racism that sees Syrians as incapable of achieving, let alone deserving, anything better than one of the most brutal dictatorships of our time.
For this authoritarian left, support is extended to the Assad regime in the name of ‘anti-imperialism’. Assad is seen as part of the ‘axis of resistance’ against both US Empire and Zionism. It matters little that the Assad regime itself supported the first Gulf war, or participated in the US illegal rendition programme where suspected terrorists were tortured in Syria on the CIA’s behalf. The fact that this regime probably holds the dubious distinction of slaughtering more Palestinians than the Israeli state is constantly overlooked, as is the fact that it’s more intent on using its armed forces to suppress internal dissent than to liberate the Israeli-occupied Golan.
This ‘anti-imperialism’ of idiots is one which equates imperialism with the actions of the US alone. They seem unaware that the US has been bombing Syria since 2014. In its campaign to liberate Raqqa from Daesh all international norms of war and considerations of proportionality were abandoned. Over 1,000 civilians were killed and the UN estimates that 80 per cent of the city is now uninhabitable. There were no protests organized by leading ‘anti-war’ organizations against this intervention, no calls to ensure that civilians and civilian infrastructure were protected. Instead they adopted the ‘War on Terror’ discourse, once the preserve of neo-cons, now promulgated by the regime, that all opposition to Assad are jihadi terrorists. They turned a blind eye to Assad filling his gulag with thousands of secular, peaceful, pro-democracy demonstrators for death by torture, whilst releasing militant-Islamists from prison. Similarly, the continuing protests held in liberated areas in opposition to extremist and authoritarian groups such as Daesh, Nusra and Ahrar Al Sham have been ignored. Syrians are not seen as possessing the sophistication to hold a diverse range of views. Civil society activists (including many amazing women), citizen journalists, humanitarian workers are irrelevant. The entire opposition is reduced to its most authoritarian elements or seen as mere conduits for foreign interests.
This pro-fascist left seems blind to any form of imperialism that is non-western in origin. It combines identity politics with egoism. Everything that happens is viewed through the prism of what it means for westerners – only white men have the power to make history. According to the Pentagon there are currently around 2000 American troops in Syria. The US has established a number of military bases in the Kurdish-controlled north for the first time in Syria’s history. This should concern anyone who supports Syrian self-determination yet pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of Iranian troops and Iranian backed Shia militias which are now occupying large parts of the country, or the murderous bombing raids carried out by the Russian air force in support of the fascist dictatorship. Russia has now established permanent military bases in the country, and has been handed exclusive rights over Syria’s oil and gas as a reward for its support. Noam Chomsky once argued that Russia’s intervention could not be considered imperialism because it was invited to bomb the country by the Syrian regime. By that analysis, the US’s intervention in Vietnam was not imperialism either, invited as it was by the South-Vietnamese government.
A number of anti-war organizations have justified their silence on Russian and Iranian interventions by arguing that ‘the main enemy is at home’. This excuses them from undertaking any serious power analysis to determine who the main actors driving the war actually are. For Syrians the main enemy is indeed at home – it’s Assad who is engaging in what the UN has termed ‘the crime of extermination’. Without being aware of their own contradictions many of the same voices have been vocally opposed (and rightly so) to Israel’s current assault on peaceful demonstrators in Gaza. Of course, one of the main ways imperialism works is to deny native voices. In this vein, leading western anti-war organizations hold conferences on Syria without inviting any Syrian speakers.
The other major political trend to have thrown its weight behind the Assad regime and organize against US, UK and French strikes on Syria is the far right. Today, the discourse of fascists and these ‘anti-imperialist leftists’ is virtually indistinguishable. In the US, white supremacist Richard Spencer, alt right podcaster Mike Enoch and anti-immigration activist Ann Coulter are all opposing US strikes. In the UK former BNP leader Nick Griffin and Islamophobe Katie Hopkins join the calls. The place where the alt-right and alt-left frequently converge is around promoting various conspiracy theories to absolve the regime of its crimes. They claim chemical massacres are false flags or that rescue workers are Al Qaeda and therefore legitimate targets for attack. Those spreading such reports are not on the ground in Syria and are unable to independently verify their claims. They are often dependent on Russian or Assad state propaganda outlets because they ‘don’t trust the MSM’ or Syrians directly affected. Sometimes the convergence of these two seemingly opposite strands of the political spectrum turns into outright collaboration. The ANSWER coalition, which is organizing many of the demonstrations against a strike on Assad in the US, has such a history. Both strands frequently promote Islamophobic and anti-Semitic narratives. Both share the same talking points and same memes.
There are many valid reasons for opposing external military intervention in Syria, whether it be by the US, Russia, Iran or Turkey. None of these states are acting in the interests of the Syrian people, democracy or human rights. They act solely in their own interests. The US, UK and French intervention today is less about protecting Syrians from mass-atrocity and more about enforcing an international norm that chemical weapons use is unacceptable, lest one day they be used on westerners themselves. More foreign bombs will not bring about peace and stability. There’s little appetite to force Assad from power which would contribute to ending the worst of the atrocities. Yet in opposing foreign intervention, one needs to come up with an alternative to protect Syrians from slaughter. It’s morally objectionable to say the least to expect Syrians to just shut up and die to protect the higher principle of ‘anti-imperialism’. Many alternatives to foreign military intervention have been proposed by Syrians time and again and have been ignored. And so the question remains, when diplomatic options have failed, when a genocidal regime is protected from censure by powerful international backers, when no progress is made in stopping daily bombing, ending starvation sieges or releasing prisoners who are being tortured on an industrial scale, what can be done.
I no longer have an answer. I’ve consistently opposed all foreign military intervention in Syria, supported Syrian led process to rid their country of a tyrant and international processes grounded in efforts to protect civilians and human rights and ensure accountability for all actors responsible for war-crimes. A negotiated settlement is the only way to end this war – and still seems as distant as ever. Assad (and his backers) are determined to thwart any process, pursue a total military victory and crush any remaining democratic alternative. Hundreds of Syrians are being killed every week in the most barbaric ways imaginable. Extremist groups and ideologies are thriving in the chaos wrought by the state. Civilians continue to flee in their thousands as legal processes – such as Law No.10 – are implemented to ensure they will never return to their homes. The international system itself is collapsing under the weight of its own impotence. The words ‘Never Again’ ring hollow. There’s no major people’s movement which stands in solidarity with the victims. They are instead slandered, their suffering is mocked or denied, and their voices either absent from discussions or questioned by people far away, who know nothing of Syria, revolution or war, and who arrogantly believe they know what is best. It is this desperate situation which causes many Syrians to welcome the US, UK and France’s action and who now see foreign intervention as their only hope, despite the risks they know it entails.
One thing is for sure – I won’t lose any sleep over targeted strikes aimed at regime military bases and chemical weapons plants which may provide Syrians with a short respite from the daily killing. And I will never see people who place grand narratives over lived realities, who support brutal regimes in far off countries, or who peddle racism, conspiracy theories and atrocity denial, as allies.
https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/the-anti-imperialism-of-idiots/
She may have a point
I like George but he can be very egotistical.
More comment.
The ‘anti-imperialism’ of idiots
Once more the western ‘anti-war’ movement has awoken to mobilise around Syria. This is the third time since 2011. The first was when Obama contemplated striking the Syrian regime’s military capability (but didn’t) following chemical attacks on the Ghouta in 2013, considered a ‘red line’. The second time was when Donald Trump ordered a strike which hit an empty regime military base in response to chemical attacks on Khan Sheikhoun in 2017. And today, as the US, UK and France take limited military action (targeted strikes on regime military assets and chemical weapons facilities) following a chemical weapons attack in Douma which killed at least 34 people, including many children who were sheltering in basements from bombing.
The first thing to note from the three major mobilisations of the western ‘anti-war’ left is that they have little to do with ending the war. More than half a million Syrians have been killed since 2011. The vast majority of civilian deaths have been through the use of conventional weapons and 94 per cent of these victims were killed by the Syrian-Russian-Iranian alliance. There is no outrage or concern feigned for this war, which followed the regime’s brutal crackdown on peaceful, pro-democracy demonstrators. There’s no outrage when barrel bombs, chemical weapons and napalm are dropped on democratically self-organized communities or target hospitals and rescue workers. Civilians are expendable; the military capabilities of a genocidal, fascist regime are not. In fact the slogan ‘Hands off Syria’ really means ‘Hands off Assad’ and support is often given for Russia’s military intervention. This was evident yesterday at a demonstration organized by Stop the War UK where a number of regime and Russian flags were shamefully on display.
This left exhibits deeply authoritarian tendencies, one that places states themselves at the centre of political analysis. Solidarity is therefore extended to states (seen as the main actor in a struggle for liberation) rather than oppressed or underprivileged groups in any given society, no matter that state’s tyranny. Blind to the social war occurring within Syria itself, the Syrian people (where they exist) are viewed as mere pawns in a geo-political chess game. They repeat the mantra ‘Assad is the legitimate ruler of a sovereign country’. Assad – who inherited a dictatorship from his father and has never held, let alone won, a free and fair election. Assad – whose ‘Syrian Arab Army’ can only regain the territory it lost with the backing of a hotchpotch of foreign mercenaries and supported by foreign bombs, and who are fighting, by and large, Syrian-born rebels and civilians. How many would consider their own elected government legitimate if it began carrying out mass rape campaigns against dissidents? It’s only the complete dehumanization of Syrians that makes such a position even possible. It’s a racism that sees Syrians as incapable of achieving, let alone deserving, anything better than one of the most brutal dictatorships of our time.
For this authoritarian left, support is extended to the Assad regime in the name of ‘anti-imperialism’. Assad is seen as part of the ‘axis of resistance’ against both US Empire and Zionism. It matters little that the Assad regime itself supported the first Gulf war, or participated in the US illegal rendition programme where suspected terrorists were tortured in Syria on the CIA’s behalf. The fact that this regime probably holds the dubious distinction of slaughtering more Palestinians than the Israeli state is constantly overlooked, as is the fact that it’s more intent on using its armed forces to suppress internal dissent than to liberate the Israeli-occupied Golan.
This ‘anti-imperialism’ of idiots is one which equates imperialism with the actions of the US alone. They seem unaware that the US has been bombing Syria since 2014. In its campaign to liberate Raqqa from Daesh all international norms of war and considerations of proportionality were abandoned. Over 1,000 civilians were killed and the UN estimates that 80 per cent of the city is now uninhabitable. There were no protests organized by leading ‘anti-war’ organizations against this intervention, no calls to ensure that civilians and civilian infrastructure were protected. Instead they adopted the ‘War on Terror’ discourse, once the preserve of neo-cons, now promulgated by the regime, that all opposition to Assad are jihadi terrorists. They turned a blind eye to Assad filling his gulag with thousands of secular, peaceful, pro-democracy demonstrators for death by torture, whilst releasing militant-Islamists from prison. Similarly, the continuing protests held in liberated areas in opposition to extremist and authoritarian groups such as Daesh, Nusra and Ahrar Al Sham have been ignored. Syrians are not seen as possessing the sophistication to hold a diverse range of views. Civil society activists (including many amazing women), citizen journalists, humanitarian workers are irrelevant. The entire opposition is reduced to its most authoritarian elements or seen as mere conduits for foreign interests.
This pro-fascist left seems blind to any form of imperialism that is non-western in origin. It combines identity politics with egoism. Everything that happens is viewed through the prism of what it means for westerners – only white men have the power to make history. According to the Pentagon there are currently around 2000 American troops in Syria. The US has established a number of military bases in the Kurdish-controlled north for the first time in Syria’s history. This should concern anyone who supports Syrian self-determination yet pales in comparison to the tens of thousands of Iranian troops and Iranian backed Shia militias which are now occupying large parts of the country, or the murderous bombing raids carried out by the Russian air force in support of the fascist dictatorship. Russia has now established permanent military bases in the country, and has been handed exclusive rights over Syria’s oil and gas as a reward for its support. Noam Chomsky once argued that Russia’s intervention could not be considered imperialism because it was invited to bomb the country by the Syrian regime. By that analysis, the US’s intervention in Vietnam was not imperialism either, invited as it was by the South-Vietnamese government.
A number of anti-war organizations have justified their silence on Russian and Iranian interventions by arguing that ‘the main enemy is at home’. This excuses them from undertaking any serious power analysis to determine who the main actors driving the war actually are. For Syrians the main enemy is indeed at home – it’s Assad who is engaging in what the UN has termed ‘the crime of extermination’. Without being aware of their own contradictions many of the same voices have been vocally opposed (and rightly so) to Israel’s current assault on peaceful demonstrators in Gaza. Of course, one of the main ways imperialism works is to deny native voices. In this vein, leading western anti-war organizations hold conferences on Syria without inviting any Syrian speakers.
The other major political trend to have thrown its weight behind the Assad regime and organize against US, UK and French strikes on Syria is the far right. Today, the discourse of fascists and these ‘anti-imperialist leftists’ is virtually indistinguishable. In the US, white supremacist Richard Spencer, alt right podcaster Mike Enoch and anti-immigration activist Ann Coulter are all opposing US strikes. In the UK former BNP leader Nick Griffin and Islamophobe Katie Hopkins join the calls. The place where the alt-right and alt-left frequently converge is around promoting various conspiracy theories to absolve the regime of its crimes. They claim chemical massacres are false flags or that rescue workers are Al Qaeda and therefore legitimate targets for attack. Those spreading such reports are not on the ground in Syria and are unable to independently verify their claims. They are often dependent on Russian or Assad state propaganda outlets because they ‘don’t trust the MSM’ or Syrians directly affected. Sometimes the convergence of these two seemingly opposite strands of the political spectrum turns into outright collaboration. The ANSWER coalition, which is organizing many of the demonstrations against a strike on Assad in the US, has such a history. Both strands frequently promote Islamophobic and anti-Semitic narratives. Both share the same talking points and same memes.
There are many valid reasons for opposing external military intervention in Syria, whether it be by the US, Russia, Iran or Turkey. None of these states are acting in the interests of the Syrian people, democracy or human rights. They act solely in their own interests. The US, UK and French intervention today is less about protecting Syrians from mass-atrocity and more about enforcing an international norm that chemical weapons use is unacceptable, lest one day they be used on westerners themselves. More foreign bombs will not bring about peace and stability. There’s little appetite to force Assad from power which would contribute to ending the worst of the atrocities. Yet in opposing foreign intervention, one needs to come up with an alternative to protect Syrians from slaughter. It’s morally objectionable to say the least to expect Syrians to just shut up and die to protect the higher principle of ‘anti-imperialism’. Many alternatives to foreign military intervention have been proposed by Syrians time and again and have been ignored. And so the question remains, when diplomatic options have failed, when a genocidal regime is protected from censure by powerful international backers, when no progress is made in stopping daily bombing, ending starvation sieges or releasing prisoners who are being tortured on an industrial scale, what can be done.
I no longer have an answer. I’ve consistently opposed all foreign military intervention in Syria, supported Syrian led process to rid their country of a tyrant and international processes grounded in efforts to protect civilians and human rights and ensure accountability for all actors responsible for war-crimes. A negotiated settlement is the only way to end this war – and still seems as distant as ever. Assad (and his backers) are determined to thwart any process, pursue a total military victory and crush any remaining democratic alternative. Hundreds of Syrians are being killed every week in the most barbaric ways imaginable. Extremist groups and ideologies are thriving in the chaos wrought by the state. Civilians continue to flee in their thousands as legal processes – such as Law No.10 – are implemented to ensure they will never return to their homes. The international system itself is collapsing under the weight of its own impotence. The words ‘Never Again’ ring hollow. There’s no major people’s movement which stands in solidarity with the victims. They are instead slandered, their suffering is mocked or denied, and their voices either absent from discussions or questioned by people far away, who know nothing of Syria, revolution or war, and who arrogantly believe they know what is best. It is this desperate situation which causes many Syrians to welcome the US, UK and France’s action and who now see foreign intervention as their only hope, despite the risks they know it entails.
One thing is for sure – I won’t lose any sleep over targeted strikes aimed at regime military bases and chemical weapons plants which may provide Syrians with a short respite from the daily killing. And I will never see people who place grand narratives over lived realities, who support brutal regimes in far off countries, or who peddle racism, conspiracy theories and atrocity denial, as allies.
https://leilashami.wordpress.com/2018/04/14/the-anti-imperialism-of-idiots/
She may have a point
I like George but he can be very egotistical.
Salaam
Another update
How Israel Postponed WW3 (inadvertently)
In 2014 Sky owner and media mogul Rupert Murdoch won the ADL Award. The honour was clearly awarded for a reason. On occasion, Sky changes itself into a state propaganda service. The video above shows such an event . Sky crudely cut off the former commander of the British Armed Forces, Jonathan Shaw, as soon as he went ‘off script’ by suggesting that the Syrian regime couldn’t have been behind the Douma gas attack. General Shaw attempted to point out that chemical warfare is a desperate act, not something you would expect from the Assad regime that has basically won.
Before yesterday, I had not believed that America would be foolish enough to lead an attack on Syria. My rationale was simple. The Russians have recently deployed their most sophisticated, yet untested, S-400 air defence system in Syria. The Russian S-400 is designed to intercept America’s 1970’s technology Tomahawk cruise missiles. I thought that it could be a fatal blow to America and to NATO to be in a situation in which many of its Tomahawk Missiles targeting Syria were downed by a Russian anti aircraft system. I was pretty sure that American military leaders wouldn’t take such a risk and certainly not for Israel. I was wrong. America, Britain and France did take that risk. According to the Russians and the Syrians most of the cruise missiles were downed. If Syria and Russia are telling the truth, NATO is an obsolete military joke. Maybe we should actually thank Israel for bringing this all to light.
Israeli press reported last week that in a telephone conversation PM Netanyahu and President Trump grew tense over Trump’s announced intent to withdraw US forces from Syria. We know that Israel has been distressed by Assad’s victory. Israel can’t bear the alliance among Hezbollah, Iran, Assad, Turkey and Russia that is happening on its northern border. Israel has openly announced its refusal to allow Iran to gain momentum in Syria.
Israel wanted to see someone, like the USA and NATO, to get involved in escalating the opposition to Assad. So it is not exactly surprising that that the three countries that were willing to provide what Israel wanted are the three countries notorious for their forceful and hawkish Jewish lobbies. In the USA, AIPAC’s domination of foreign affairs has been the subject of extensive academic research. In Britain 80% of the Tory MPs are members of the belligerent Conservative Friends of Israel and in France the CRIF (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France) is known to be the most forceful body in the land.
Earlier this week it seemed as if WW3 might be close. No careful observer of the Middle East could miss that Israel and its supportive pro war lobbies have been, somehow, at the centre of all of it. But now it seems that Israel and its lobbies have pushed America, Britain and France to act against their own national interests. This morning, following the recent criminal, yet futile, attack on Syria it is clear that NATO isn’t exactly a military powerhouse. It is a decaying Zionist tool. It is not ready for a war. For the time being WW3 has been postponed. I guess we can at least be grateful to Israel for that.
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/2018/4/14/how-israel-postponed-ww3-inadvertently
Another update
How Israel Postponed WW3 (inadvertently)
In 2014 Sky owner and media mogul Rupert Murdoch won the ADL Award. The honour was clearly awarded for a reason. On occasion, Sky changes itself into a state propaganda service. The video above shows such an event . Sky crudely cut off the former commander of the British Armed Forces, Jonathan Shaw, as soon as he went ‘off script’ by suggesting that the Syrian regime couldn’t have been behind the Douma gas attack. General Shaw attempted to point out that chemical warfare is a desperate act, not something you would expect from the Assad regime that has basically won.
Before yesterday, I had not believed that America would be foolish enough to lead an attack on Syria. My rationale was simple. The Russians have recently deployed their most sophisticated, yet untested, S-400 air defence system in Syria. The Russian S-400 is designed to intercept America’s 1970’s technology Tomahawk cruise missiles. I thought that it could be a fatal blow to America and to NATO to be in a situation in which many of its Tomahawk Missiles targeting Syria were downed by a Russian anti aircraft system. I was pretty sure that American military leaders wouldn’t take such a risk and certainly not for Israel. I was wrong. America, Britain and France did take that risk. According to the Russians and the Syrians most of the cruise missiles were downed. If Syria and Russia are telling the truth, NATO is an obsolete military joke. Maybe we should actually thank Israel for bringing this all to light.
Israeli press reported last week that in a telephone conversation PM Netanyahu and President Trump grew tense over Trump’s announced intent to withdraw US forces from Syria. We know that Israel has been distressed by Assad’s victory. Israel can’t bear the alliance among Hezbollah, Iran, Assad, Turkey and Russia that is happening on its northern border. Israel has openly announced its refusal to allow Iran to gain momentum in Syria.
Israel wanted to see someone, like the USA and NATO, to get involved in escalating the opposition to Assad. So it is not exactly surprising that that the three countries that were willing to provide what Israel wanted are the three countries notorious for their forceful and hawkish Jewish lobbies. In the USA, AIPAC’s domination of foreign affairs has been the subject of extensive academic research. In Britain 80% of the Tory MPs are members of the belligerent Conservative Friends of Israel and in France the CRIF (Representative Council of Jewish Institutions in France) is known to be the most forceful body in the land.
Earlier this week it seemed as if WW3 might be close. No careful observer of the Middle East could miss that Israel and its supportive pro war lobbies have been, somehow, at the centre of all of it. But now it seems that Israel and its lobbies have pushed America, Britain and France to act against their own national interests. This morning, following the recent criminal, yet futile, attack on Syria it is clear that NATO isn’t exactly a military powerhouse. It is a decaying Zionist tool. It is not ready for a war. For the time being WW3 has been postponed. I guess we can at least be grateful to Israel for that.
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/2018/4/14/how-israel-postponed-ww3-inadvertently
Misbah-Abd
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He believes that most of the missiles have been downed because the Russians and Syrians said so. That is the problem with his whole argument.
JustTime
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Israel is powerless
JustTime
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Just a reminder that Assad isn't the only tyrant in Syria.
Kurdish fighters 'carry out ethnic cleansing' in Syria
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016...y-ethnic-cleansing-syria-160215041944504.html
Yasin Aktay: The PKK is carrying out ethnic cleansing in northern Syria through its offshoot there, the PYD. The group has been doing this with the support of Russia.
The PYD goes to territories where there is no or a small Kurdish population, and works to deport non-Kurdish ethnic population out of these areas.
Aleppo is perhaps the only place where Syrians can still breathe. There is a humanitarian corridor [from Turkey] to Aleppo, allowing people to keep on with their lives in this key city.
If this humanitarian corridor was blocked, which PYD seeks to achieve, people cannot go on with their lives in Aleppo and they will try to take refuge in Turkey, fleeing ethnic cleansing.
Turkey keeps on with its open-door policy, helping people in need. However, Ankara can no longer tolerate such [PYD] activities in Syria, which will create a situation that will make people leave their homes and make Turkey pay the price for it.
At the end of the day, an ethnic group [Kurdish] which has a minor population in Syria is trying to take over a very large part of the country.
Al Jazeera: How do the PKK and PYD collaborate?
Aktay: Following Turkey's offensive on PKK targets in the country, these [PKK] terrorists have began entering Syria and fighting there. They are trying to create a corridor through the Syria-Turkey border. This creates an obvious security risk for our country.
Al Jazeera: Do you think that the PYD is in full co-operation with the Syrian regime?
Aktay: This has been valid since the early days of the Syrian crisis. The Syrian government managed to get the PYD to work for it, despite the fact that Kurds were repressed for decades under the regime there. The PYD is opposed by other Kurdish factions in Syria and among Iraqi Kurds as well. It does not represent the Kurdish people of Syria.The group has always functioned in full co-operation with the Syrian intelligence and always betrayed Kurds while working with the Syrian regime.
Syrian Kurds accused of ethnic cleansing and killing opponents
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...ed-of-ethnic-cleansing-and-killing-opponents/
Syrian groups backed by the West have been accused of driving people into the arms of Isil, executing prisoners and killing hundreds of people in recent inter-factional fighting. The YPG, the Kurdish group being backed both by the United States to fight Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and by the Russians to fight US-supported anti-Assad rebels, is sending civilians into flight with its behaviour, according to a former US ambassador to the country, Robert Ford.
“In some cases, Syrian refugees flee it and don't go towards the Kurdish areas - they run away from them and into Islamic State territory,” Mr Ford told a Senate committee hearing.
He made the accusation at a time when both pro- and anti-regime forces in Syria are fragmenting under the pressure of the seemingly endless conflict.
US-backed Kurdish forces face accusations of abuse amid Isis liberation campaign
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...e-detentions-arrests-internment-a7763956.html
Reports that Arab families fleeing Isis as the battle for the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa intensifies are being detained in what activist group Raqqa is being Silently Slaughtered has labelled Kurdish “concentration camps” have multiplied in recent weeks.
The YPG, and later the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mainly Kurdish alliance of rebels, have proven to be the most effective ground force against Isis, earning them long-standing financial and military backing from the US.
Activists living in Sunni-rebel held parts of the north have long claimed innocent Arab men and boys have been rounded up, detained or otherwise abused by YPG soldiers as they advance on Isis-held areas.
While Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reports from 2014 and 2015 found some evidence that Kurdish forces had violated the rights of other ethnic groups in their territories
Kurdish fighters 'carry out ethnic cleansing' in Syria
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2016...y-ethnic-cleansing-syria-160215041944504.html
Yasin Aktay: The PKK is carrying out ethnic cleansing in northern Syria through its offshoot there, the PYD. The group has been doing this with the support of Russia.
The PYD goes to territories where there is no or a small Kurdish population, and works to deport non-Kurdish ethnic population out of these areas.
Aleppo is perhaps the only place where Syrians can still breathe. There is a humanitarian corridor [from Turkey] to Aleppo, allowing people to keep on with their lives in this key city.
If this humanitarian corridor was blocked, which PYD seeks to achieve, people cannot go on with their lives in Aleppo and they will try to take refuge in Turkey, fleeing ethnic cleansing.
Turkey keeps on with its open-door policy, helping people in need. However, Ankara can no longer tolerate such [PYD] activities in Syria, which will create a situation that will make people leave their homes and make Turkey pay the price for it.
At the end of the day, an ethnic group [Kurdish] which has a minor population in Syria is trying to take over a very large part of the country.
Al Jazeera: How do the PKK and PYD collaborate?
Aktay: Following Turkey's offensive on PKK targets in the country, these [PKK] terrorists have began entering Syria and fighting there. They are trying to create a corridor through the Syria-Turkey border. This creates an obvious security risk for our country.
Al Jazeera: Do you think that the PYD is in full co-operation with the Syrian regime?
Aktay: This has been valid since the early days of the Syrian crisis. The Syrian government managed to get the PYD to work for it, despite the fact that Kurds were repressed for decades under the regime there. The PYD is opposed by other Kurdish factions in Syria and among Iraqi Kurds as well. It does not represent the Kurdish people of Syria.The group has always functioned in full co-operation with the Syrian intelligence and always betrayed Kurds while working with the Syrian regime.
Syrian Kurds accused of ethnic cleansing and killing opponents
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...ed-of-ethnic-cleansing-and-killing-opponents/
Syrian groups backed by the West have been accused of driving people into the arms of Isil, executing prisoners and killing hundreds of people in recent inter-factional fighting. The YPG, the Kurdish group being backed both by the United States to fight Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant and by the Russians to fight US-supported anti-Assad rebels, is sending civilians into flight with its behaviour, according to a former US ambassador to the country, Robert Ford.
“In some cases, Syrian refugees flee it and don't go towards the Kurdish areas - they run away from them and into Islamic State territory,” Mr Ford told a Senate committee hearing.
He made the accusation at a time when both pro- and anti-regime forces in Syria are fragmenting under the pressure of the seemingly endless conflict.
US-backed Kurdish forces face accusations of abuse amid Isis liberation campaign
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...e-detentions-arrests-internment-a7763956.html
Reports that Arab families fleeing Isis as the battle for the group’s de facto capital of Raqqa intensifies are being detained in what activist group Raqqa is being Silently Slaughtered has labelled Kurdish “concentration camps” have multiplied in recent weeks.
The YPG, and later the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a mainly Kurdish alliance of rebels, have proven to be the most effective ground force against Isis, earning them long-standing financial and military backing from the US.
Activists living in Sunni-rebel held parts of the north have long claimed innocent Arab men and boys have been rounded up, detained or otherwise abused by YPG soldiers as they advance on Isis-held areas.
While Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International reports from 2014 and 2015 found some evidence that Kurdish forces had violated the rights of other ethnic groups in their territories
Last edited:
Salaam
Another update
Robert Fisk’s Douma report rips away excuses for air strike on Syria
It seems that many who supported the weekend’s air strikes on Syria are overlooking the significance of Robert Fisk’s report today from Douma, the site of a supposed chemical weapons attack last week.
Fisk is the first western journalist to reach the area and speak to people there. One is a senior doctor at the clinic that treated victims of what a video purported to show were chemical weapons used by the Syrian government. The incident was used as the justifcation for the air strikes launched jointly by the US, the UK and France.
The doctor says the video was real, but did not show the effects of a chemical weapons attack. It showed something else. This is what the doctor is reported saying:
“I was with my family in the basement of my home three hundred metres from here on the night but all the doctors know what happened. There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night — but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a ‘White Helmet’, shouted ‘Gas!”, and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning.”
On my social media pages there are plenty of armchair warriors furiously denying the importance of this report, by claiming either that the doctor made up the story or that Fisk is a mouthpiece for the Assad regime, or maybe both.
That will not wash for reasons that ought to be obvious – and it still won’t wash even if the testimony later turns out to be wrong.
The air strikes on Syria at the weekend were patently illegal according to international law. That would have been the case even had there been a chemical weapons attack in Douma, in part because it would have been necessary for independent inspectors to determine first whether the Syrian government, and not the jihadists there, was responsible.
The air strikes would have been illegal too, even if it could have been shown that a chemical weapons attack had taken place and that Assad personally ordered it. That is because air strikes would have first required authorisation from the UN Security Council. That is why international law exists: to regulate affairs between states, to prevent militarism of the “might is right” variety that nearly destroyed Europe 80 years ago, and to avoid unnecessary state confrontations that in a nuclear age could have dire repercussions.
Had Assad been shown to be responsible, Russia would have come under enormous international pressure to authorise action of some kind against Syria – pressure it would have been extremely hard for it to resist.
But had it resisted that pressure, we would have had to live with its veto at the Security Council. And again, for very good reason. Israel, the US and the UK have used depleted uranium munitions in the Middle East, and Israel and the US white phosphorous. But who among us would think it reasonable for Russia or China to unilaterally carry out punishment air strikes on Maryland (US), Porton Down (UK) or Nes Ziona (Israel), and justify the move on the grounds that the US and UK could veto any moves against themselves or their allies at the Security Council? Who would want to champion belligerent attacks on these sovereign states as “humanitarian intervention”?
But all of this is irrelevant because whatever incontrovertible information the US, UK and France claimed to have that Syria carried out a chemical weapons attack last week is clearly no more reliable than their claims about an Iraqi WMD programme back in 2002.
Fisk does not need to prove that his account is definitively true – just like a defendant in the dock does not need to prove their innocence. He has to show only that he reported accurately and honestly, and that the testimony he recounted was plausible and consistent with what he saw. Everything about Fisk’s record and about this particular report suggests there should be no doubt on that score.
Fisk’s report shows that there is a highly credible alternative explanation for what happened in Douma – one that needs to be investigated. Which means that an attack on Syria should never have taken place before inspectors were able to investigate and report their findings.
Instead, the US-UK-France launched air strikes hours before the UN inspectors were due to begin their work in Syria, thereby pre-empting it. At the time those air strikes took place, the aggressor states had neither legal nor evidential justification for their actions. They were were simply relying on the reports of parties, like the White Helmets, that have a vested interest in engineering the Syrian government’s downfall.
As is now known beyond doubt, our leaders lied to us about Iraq and about Libya. Some of us have been warning for some time that we should be highly sceptical of everything we are being told by our governments about Syria, until it is verified by independent evidence.
All of us have a moral responsibility to stop simply believing what our governments and their propagandists in the corporate media tell us, whether we have been doing so out of a kneejerk authoritarian impulse or because we have some romantic notion that, despite the evidence, our leaders are always the good guys and their leaders are always the bad guys.
Just consider for a moment the UK’s support for, and involvement in, the horrifying Saudi war against Yemen, or US politicians’ blanket silence on Israel’s massacre of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza. Our leaders have no moral high ground to stand on. Their foreign policy decisions are about oil, defence contracts and geo-strategic interests, not about protecting civilians or fighting just wars.
However bad Assad is, and he is a dictator, he is responsible for far fewer deaths and much less suffering in the Middle East than either George W Bush or Tony Blair.
Former New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer sets out a very plausible reason why the US, UK and France keep intervening in Syria. It is not about children or chemical weapons. It is to prevent the Syrian government and Russia triumphing over the jihadists, as they have been close to doing for some time.
These western states are adamantly opposed to allowing a peaceful resolution in Syria, Kinzer observes, because it:
“might allow stability to spread to nearby countries. Today, for the first time in modern history, the governments of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon are on good terms. A partnership among them could lay the foundation for a new Middle East.
“That new Middle East, however, would not be submissive to the United States-Israel-Saudi Arabia coalition. For that reason, we are determined to prevent it from emerging. Better to keep these countries in misery and conflict, some reason, than to allow them to thrive while they defy the United States. …
“From Washington’s perspective, peace in Syria is the horror scenario. Peace would mean what the United States sees as a ‘win’ for our enemies: Russia, Iran, and the Assad government. We are determined to prevent that, regardless of the human cost.”
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/robert-fisks-douma-report-rips-away-excuses-for-air-strike-on-syria/
Another update
Robert Fisk’s Douma report rips away excuses for air strike on Syria
It seems that many who supported the weekend’s air strikes on Syria are overlooking the significance of Robert Fisk’s report today from Douma, the site of a supposed chemical weapons attack last week.
Fisk is the first western journalist to reach the area and speak to people there. One is a senior doctor at the clinic that treated victims of what a video purported to show were chemical weapons used by the Syrian government. The incident was used as the justifcation for the air strikes launched jointly by the US, the UK and France.
The doctor says the video was real, but did not show the effects of a chemical weapons attack. It showed something else. This is what the doctor is reported saying:
“I was with my family in the basement of my home three hundred metres from here on the night but all the doctors know what happened. There was a lot of shelling [by government forces] and aircraft were always over Douma at night — but on this night, there was wind and huge dust clouds began to come into the basements and cellars where people lived. People began to arrive here suffering from hypoxia, oxygen loss. Then someone at the door, a ‘White Helmet’, shouted ‘Gas!”, and a panic began. People started throwing water over each other. Yes, the video was filmed here, it is genuine, but what you see are people suffering from hypoxia – not gas poisoning.”
On my social media pages there are plenty of armchair warriors furiously denying the importance of this report, by claiming either that the doctor made up the story or that Fisk is a mouthpiece for the Assad regime, or maybe both.
That will not wash for reasons that ought to be obvious – and it still won’t wash even if the testimony later turns out to be wrong.
The air strikes on Syria at the weekend were patently illegal according to international law. That would have been the case even had there been a chemical weapons attack in Douma, in part because it would have been necessary for independent inspectors to determine first whether the Syrian government, and not the jihadists there, was responsible.
The air strikes would have been illegal too, even if it could have been shown that a chemical weapons attack had taken place and that Assad personally ordered it. That is because air strikes would have first required authorisation from the UN Security Council. That is why international law exists: to regulate affairs between states, to prevent militarism of the “might is right” variety that nearly destroyed Europe 80 years ago, and to avoid unnecessary state confrontations that in a nuclear age could have dire repercussions.
Had Assad been shown to be responsible, Russia would have come under enormous international pressure to authorise action of some kind against Syria – pressure it would have been extremely hard for it to resist.
But had it resisted that pressure, we would have had to live with its veto at the Security Council. And again, for very good reason. Israel, the US and the UK have used depleted uranium munitions in the Middle East, and Israel and the US white phosphorous. But who among us would think it reasonable for Russia or China to unilaterally carry out punishment air strikes on Maryland (US), Porton Down (UK) or Nes Ziona (Israel), and justify the move on the grounds that the US and UK could veto any moves against themselves or their allies at the Security Council? Who would want to champion belligerent attacks on these sovereign states as “humanitarian intervention”?
But all of this is irrelevant because whatever incontrovertible information the US, UK and France claimed to have that Syria carried out a chemical weapons attack last week is clearly no more reliable than their claims about an Iraqi WMD programme back in 2002.
Fisk does not need to prove that his account is definitively true – just like a defendant in the dock does not need to prove their innocence. He has to show only that he reported accurately and honestly, and that the testimony he recounted was plausible and consistent with what he saw. Everything about Fisk’s record and about this particular report suggests there should be no doubt on that score.
Fisk’s report shows that there is a highly credible alternative explanation for what happened in Douma – one that needs to be investigated. Which means that an attack on Syria should never have taken place before inspectors were able to investigate and report their findings.
Instead, the US-UK-France launched air strikes hours before the UN inspectors were due to begin their work in Syria, thereby pre-empting it. At the time those air strikes took place, the aggressor states had neither legal nor evidential justification for their actions. They were were simply relying on the reports of parties, like the White Helmets, that have a vested interest in engineering the Syrian government’s downfall.
As is now known beyond doubt, our leaders lied to us about Iraq and about Libya. Some of us have been warning for some time that we should be highly sceptical of everything we are being told by our governments about Syria, until it is verified by independent evidence.
All of us have a moral responsibility to stop simply believing what our governments and their propagandists in the corporate media tell us, whether we have been doing so out of a kneejerk authoritarian impulse or because we have some romantic notion that, despite the evidence, our leaders are always the good guys and their leaders are always the bad guys.
Just consider for a moment the UK’s support for, and involvement in, the horrifying Saudi war against Yemen, or US politicians’ blanket silence on Israel’s massacre of unarmed demonstrators in Gaza. Our leaders have no moral high ground to stand on. Their foreign policy decisions are about oil, defence contracts and geo-strategic interests, not about protecting civilians or fighting just wars.
However bad Assad is, and he is a dictator, he is responsible for far fewer deaths and much less suffering in the Middle East than either George W Bush or Tony Blair.
Former New York Times correspondent Stephen Kinzer sets out a very plausible reason why the US, UK and France keep intervening in Syria. It is not about children or chemical weapons. It is to prevent the Syrian government and Russia triumphing over the jihadists, as they have been close to doing for some time.
These western states are adamantly opposed to allowing a peaceful resolution in Syria, Kinzer observes, because it:
“might allow stability to spread to nearby countries. Today, for the first time in modern history, the governments of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Lebanon are on good terms. A partnership among them could lay the foundation for a new Middle East.
“That new Middle East, however, would not be submissive to the United States-Israel-Saudi Arabia coalition. For that reason, we are determined to prevent it from emerging. Better to keep these countries in misery and conflict, some reason, than to allow them to thrive while they defy the United States. …
“From Washington’s perspective, peace in Syria is the horror scenario. Peace would mean what the United States sees as a ‘win’ for our enemies: Russia, Iran, and the Assad government. We are determined to prevent that, regardless of the human cost.”
https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/robert-fisks-douma-report-rips-away-excuses-for-air-strike-on-syria/
JustTime
كـٌنٍ مـَع الـلُّـہ
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What is wrong with you, it doesn't matter if Assad used chemical weapons or not, though he did. It matters what he does and what he does it for the sake for, he is a Nusayri that is determined on gathering all the enemies of Islam together to kill Muslims, and thus he should be fought and punished as should his allies, I personally don't care who carried out these airstrikes even if the Iranians themselves did it I would still praise it even if it was an accident, because we should praise what harshness Allah has destined to punish the guilty, on that night Bashar was enraged, filled with fear, and endured agony like so many of his victims and I sincerely ask Allah to humiliate him before, he (Allah) relieves us of him.
- - - Updated - - -
May Allah put a horrible, harsh, agonizing curse upon them, and all of their decedents until the final honor
Salaam
Another update
A 10-Minute Trial, a Death Sentence:
Iraqi Justice for ISIS Suspects
BAGHDAD — The 42-year-old housewife had two minutes to defend herself against charges of supporting the Islamic State.
Amina Hassan, a Turkish woman in a flowing black abaya, told the Iraqi judge that she and her family had entered Syria and Iraq illegally and lived in the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate for more than two years. But, she added: “I never took money from Islamic State. I brought my own money from Turkey.”
The whole trial lasted 10 minutes before the judge sentenced her to death by hanging.
Another accused Turkish woman entered the courtroom. Then another, and another.
Within two hours, 14 women had been tried, convicted and sentenced to die.
Iraq’s judicial assembly line has relentlessly churned out terrorism convictions since the battlefield victories over the Islamic State last year led to the capture of thousands of fighters, functionaries and family members. Authorities accuse them of helping to prop up the group’s vicious three-year rule over nearly a third of the country.
As millions of Iraqis struggle to recover from the bloodshed and destruction of the period, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has found widespread public support for his push to step up the pace of prosecutions — and for punishments to the full extent of the law, which in Iraq means execution.
“These Islamic State criminals committed crimes against humanity and against our people in Iraq, in Mosul and Salahuddin and Anbar, everywhere,” said Gen. Yahya Rasool, the spokesman for the Iraqi joint operations command. “To be loyal to the blood of the victims and to be loyal to the Iraqi people, criminals must receive the death penalty, a punishment that would deter them and those who sympathize with them.”
But critics say the perfunctory trials in special counterterrorism courts are sweeping up bystanders and relatives as well as fighters, and executing most of them in a process more concerned with retribution than justice.
The office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that flaws in the judicial process would most likely lead to “irreversible miscarriages” of justice.
Human Rights Watch has criticized Iraq for relying on an overly broad law to quickly achieve the maximum punishment of the most people.
The nation’s counterterrorism law allows the death penalty for anyone “who commits, incites, plans, finances or assists in acts of terrorism.” So Iraqi courts are meting out one-size-fits-all punishment for the perpetrator of crimes against humanity as well for as the wife of an Islamic State fighter who may have had little say in her husband’s career.
“Individual circumstances don’t matter,” said Belkis Wille, the senior researcher for Iraq for Human Rights Watch. “Cooks, medical workers, everyone is given the death penalty.”
The low bar for conviction under the law, she said, also means that the courts are not bothering to investigate some of the worst crimes believed to have been committed by Islamic State members, such as slavery, rape or extrajudicial killings.
Iraq’s Justice Ministry rejects such criticism and touts the integrity of its judges and its standards of due process. “If there is evidence then suspects are prosecuted, and if there is no evidence then they are released,” said Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, a judge and Justice Ministry spokesman.
The government has not released statistics about its terrorism detainees, but two people familiar with the court who were not authorized to speak to journalists said that approximately 13,000 people had been detained on suspicion of ties to the Islamic State since 2017, when the vast majority of arrests were made.
Human Rights Watch estimated in December that at least 20,000 people accused of ties to the Islamic State were being held by the Iraqi authorities. Last month, The Associated Press reported that Iraq had detained or imprisoned at least 19,000 people since 2014 on accusations of connections to the Islamic State or other terrorism-related offenses.
Many of these detainees were arrested on the battlefield. Some were detained far from combat, based on information gleaned from informers and prison interrogations.
Iraqi intelligence officials say that high-value detainees, people accused of involvement in specific terrorist attacks, are held separately from the majority of prisoners, who are suspected of having been low-level cogs in the Islamic State bureaucracy.
Since the summer of 2017, more than 10,000 cases have been referred to the courts, the people familiar with the court said. To date, they said, approximately 2,900 trials have been completed, with a conviction rate of about 98 percent.
They did not say how many had received the death penalty, nor how many executions had been carried out.
The government said 11 people were executed on Monday for “terrorism crimes,” fulfilling “the government’s promise to kill those responsible for shedding Iraqi blood,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement.
Among those held apart from the general prison population are approximately 1,350 foreign women and 580 children, the majority of whom surrendered to Iraqi security forces last August during military operations to liberate the town of Tal Afar. The vast majority of these detainees are Turkish, Russian and Central Asian.
Iraq says it is determined to try them if evidence links them to the Islamic State, but some of their home countries, including Saudi Arabia, have requested extradition for some of their citizens. Other countries, like Britain and France, have been reluctant to take their citizens back, officials from both countries said.
In rare cases, individuals have been returned to their home countries, such as a group of four Russian women and 27 children in February, after Iraqi authorities concluded they had been tricked into coming to Islamic State territory. Turkey has been working to repatriate minors whose parents took them to the caliphate, as well as those found innocent of wrongdoing.
For a nation that for more than 15 years has been an incubator for Islamist extremists and has been torn apart by terrorist bombings, Iraqis have little appetite for leniency or concern about mitigating circumstances that in other nations could be grounds for clemency. Foreigners in particular are widely assumed to have been the Islamic State’s most fervent adherents since they moved here to join the caliphate.
“What concerns me the most in these trials is that the system is fundamentally prejudiced against foreign individuals,” said Ms. Wille, who has observed dozens of terrorism trials. “The presumption is because you are foreign, and you were in ISIS territory, there is no need to provide more evidence.”
The 14 women convicted in one afternoon this month, 12 Turks and two Azerbaijanis ranging from 20 to 44 years old, had lived in Raqqa, the former capital of the group’s territory in Syria. When international airstrikes escalated there and several of their husbands were killed, they moved to Iraq and were among those who surrendered outside Tal Afar.
Gaunt, withdrawn and surrounded by plainclothes security guards, they waited in the florescent-lit hallways of Baghdad’s counterterrorism court for their trials to start. Eleven toddlers who had spent the last eight months in detention with their mothers accompanied them to the court.
When Ms. Hassan was called, she handed her child to another detainee to look after. The other women cooed and hummed to try to placate her curly-haired toddler. Some appeared to whisper prayers.
Their state-appointed lawyer, Ali Sultan, said he had not prepared for the trials. He said he had no access to the evidence against his clients because information related to terrorism investigations is classified.
He added that his pay — $25 regardless of whether the case goes to appeal — hardly encourages much effort. The fee is paid only after the final appeal is exhausted or the client is executed which, despite the push to expedite trials, can take months if not years.
After Ms. Hassan was sentenced by Judge Ahmed al-Ameri, he swiftly dispensed with the rest of the docket.
Negar Mohammed told him that she was innocent of all Islamic State crimes; he ruled otherwise.
Nazli Ismail told the judge that her husband pushed her family to go to Syria. Three of her children were killed in an airstrike, she said. The only one to survive was her youngest, a 2-year-old boy named Yahya, who was waiting outside in the hallway.
Judge Ameri asked, “Are you innocent or guilty?”
“I’m innocent,” Ms. Ismail replied.
The judge sentenced her to death.
Ms. Ismail accepted her fate with a smile. “This means I will finally go to heaven,” she said.
Mother and child left the courthouse under armed guard. It was unclear what would happen to the child.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/world/middleeast/iraq-isis-trials.html#click=https://t.co/norKCF3jdo
Another update
A 10-Minute Trial, a Death Sentence:
Iraqi Justice for ISIS Suspects
BAGHDAD — The 42-year-old housewife had two minutes to defend herself against charges of supporting the Islamic State.
Amina Hassan, a Turkish woman in a flowing black abaya, told the Iraqi judge that she and her family had entered Syria and Iraq illegally and lived in the Islamic State’s so-called caliphate for more than two years. But, she added: “I never took money from Islamic State. I brought my own money from Turkey.”
The whole trial lasted 10 minutes before the judge sentenced her to death by hanging.
Another accused Turkish woman entered the courtroom. Then another, and another.
Within two hours, 14 women had been tried, convicted and sentenced to die.
Iraq’s judicial assembly line has relentlessly churned out terrorism convictions since the battlefield victories over the Islamic State last year led to the capture of thousands of fighters, functionaries and family members. Authorities accuse them of helping to prop up the group’s vicious three-year rule over nearly a third of the country.
As millions of Iraqis struggle to recover from the bloodshed and destruction of the period, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi has found widespread public support for his push to step up the pace of prosecutions — and for punishments to the full extent of the law, which in Iraq means execution.
“These Islamic State criminals committed crimes against humanity and against our people in Iraq, in Mosul and Salahuddin and Anbar, everywhere,” said Gen. Yahya Rasool, the spokesman for the Iraqi joint operations command. “To be loyal to the blood of the victims and to be loyal to the Iraqi people, criminals must receive the death penalty, a punishment that would deter them and those who sympathize with them.”
But critics say the perfunctory trials in special counterterrorism courts are sweeping up bystanders and relatives as well as fighters, and executing most of them in a process more concerned with retribution than justice.
The office for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights warned that flaws in the judicial process would most likely lead to “irreversible miscarriages” of justice.
Human Rights Watch has criticized Iraq for relying on an overly broad law to quickly achieve the maximum punishment of the most people.
The nation’s counterterrorism law allows the death penalty for anyone “who commits, incites, plans, finances or assists in acts of terrorism.” So Iraqi courts are meting out one-size-fits-all punishment for the perpetrator of crimes against humanity as well for as the wife of an Islamic State fighter who may have had little say in her husband’s career.
“Individual circumstances don’t matter,” said Belkis Wille, the senior researcher for Iraq for Human Rights Watch. “Cooks, medical workers, everyone is given the death penalty.”
The low bar for conviction under the law, she said, also means that the courts are not bothering to investigate some of the worst crimes believed to have been committed by Islamic State members, such as slavery, rape or extrajudicial killings.
Iraq’s Justice Ministry rejects such criticism and touts the integrity of its judges and its standards of due process. “If there is evidence then suspects are prosecuted, and if there is no evidence then they are released,” said Abdul-Sattar al-Birqdar, a judge and Justice Ministry spokesman.
The government has not released statistics about its terrorism detainees, but two people familiar with the court who were not authorized to speak to journalists said that approximately 13,000 people had been detained on suspicion of ties to the Islamic State since 2017, when the vast majority of arrests were made.
Human Rights Watch estimated in December that at least 20,000 people accused of ties to the Islamic State were being held by the Iraqi authorities. Last month, The Associated Press reported that Iraq had detained or imprisoned at least 19,000 people since 2014 on accusations of connections to the Islamic State or other terrorism-related offenses.
Many of these detainees were arrested on the battlefield. Some were detained far from combat, based on information gleaned from informers and prison interrogations.
Iraqi intelligence officials say that high-value detainees, people accused of involvement in specific terrorist attacks, are held separately from the majority of prisoners, who are suspected of having been low-level cogs in the Islamic State bureaucracy.
Since the summer of 2017, more than 10,000 cases have been referred to the courts, the people familiar with the court said. To date, they said, approximately 2,900 trials have been completed, with a conviction rate of about 98 percent.
They did not say how many had received the death penalty, nor how many executions had been carried out.
The government said 11 people were executed on Monday for “terrorism crimes,” fulfilling “the government’s promise to kill those responsible for shedding Iraqi blood,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement.
Among those held apart from the general prison population are approximately 1,350 foreign women and 580 children, the majority of whom surrendered to Iraqi security forces last August during military operations to liberate the town of Tal Afar. The vast majority of these detainees are Turkish, Russian and Central Asian.
Iraq says it is determined to try them if evidence links them to the Islamic State, but some of their home countries, including Saudi Arabia, have requested extradition for some of their citizens. Other countries, like Britain and France, have been reluctant to take their citizens back, officials from both countries said.
In rare cases, individuals have been returned to their home countries, such as a group of four Russian women and 27 children in February, after Iraqi authorities concluded they had been tricked into coming to Islamic State territory. Turkey has been working to repatriate minors whose parents took them to the caliphate, as well as those found innocent of wrongdoing.
For a nation that for more than 15 years has been an incubator for Islamist extremists and has been torn apart by terrorist bombings, Iraqis have little appetite for leniency or concern about mitigating circumstances that in other nations could be grounds for clemency. Foreigners in particular are widely assumed to have been the Islamic State’s most fervent adherents since they moved here to join the caliphate.
“What concerns me the most in these trials is that the system is fundamentally prejudiced against foreign individuals,” said Ms. Wille, who has observed dozens of terrorism trials. “The presumption is because you are foreign, and you were in ISIS territory, there is no need to provide more evidence.”
The 14 women convicted in one afternoon this month, 12 Turks and two Azerbaijanis ranging from 20 to 44 years old, had lived in Raqqa, the former capital of the group’s territory in Syria. When international airstrikes escalated there and several of their husbands were killed, they moved to Iraq and were among those who surrendered outside Tal Afar.
Gaunt, withdrawn and surrounded by plainclothes security guards, they waited in the florescent-lit hallways of Baghdad’s counterterrorism court for their trials to start. Eleven toddlers who had spent the last eight months in detention with their mothers accompanied them to the court.
When Ms. Hassan was called, she handed her child to another detainee to look after. The other women cooed and hummed to try to placate her curly-haired toddler. Some appeared to whisper prayers.
Their state-appointed lawyer, Ali Sultan, said he had not prepared for the trials. He said he had no access to the evidence against his clients because information related to terrorism investigations is classified.
He added that his pay — $25 regardless of whether the case goes to appeal — hardly encourages much effort. The fee is paid only after the final appeal is exhausted or the client is executed which, despite the push to expedite trials, can take months if not years.
After Ms. Hassan was sentenced by Judge Ahmed al-Ameri, he swiftly dispensed with the rest of the docket.
Negar Mohammed told him that she was innocent of all Islamic State crimes; he ruled otherwise.
Nazli Ismail told the judge that her husband pushed her family to go to Syria. Three of her children were killed in an airstrike, she said. The only one to survive was her youngest, a 2-year-old boy named Yahya, who was waiting outside in the hallway.
Judge Ameri asked, “Are you innocent or guilty?”
“I’m innocent,” Ms. Ismail replied.
The judge sentenced her to death.
Ms. Ismail accepted her fate with a smile. “This means I will finally go to heaven,” she said.
Mother and child left the courthouse under armed guard. It was unclear what would happen to the child.
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